Always in the Dark
by Magdalync
Summary: Ranger POV. Stephanie is never far from Ranger's mind as he tries to forget in the arms of another woman. Part 2 will be a companion piece with R/S 'Someday' HEA. Babe story.
1. Always in the Dark

**A/N:** Believe it or not, this is a Babe 'story'. This part is definitely dark and a completely different writing style than you are used to seeing from me. I would like to thank Katbaby for inspiring the concept, Vicki for inspiring the tone and style, and Dee for both encouraging me to post it, and for her help as a beta. I also want to thank my friends who have already read part I privately and gave me such positive feedback, I found the courage to post this.

**Disclaimer: **Not my characters, not making any money.

**Warning:** This is **smut**. I'd like to think of it as artistically introspective smut. (I'm creating a genre!) The man is Ranger. The woman is not Stephanie. She has no name because…to Ranger, she has no name.

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**Always in the Dark**

It is always in the dark.

Something that used to be so habitual and easy has somehow turned to something shameful, complicated, clandestine and desperate. I was once a man with tremendous needs and I had every means accessible to me to fulfill those needs. Fucking was fucking. A perfect stranger, in the light, in the dark, in her car, up against an alley wall; it was so simple. It meant nothing more than feeling good, getting off.

But that was before _her_.

Even now as I stroke another's skin, smell another's scent, hear another's sighs, I cannot escape _her_. I try harder. The lights are off but maybe they should be on so I can see the difference and let go of this sick obsession, even if only for an hour.

I thread my fingers through her hair to anchor my mouth more firmly across hers as our tongues slide and glide against one another. I try not to think that the hair is too short, too smooth, that it feels wrong because my fingers keep slipping and sliding instead of becoming entangled and entrapped.

The kiss isn't the same. It amazes me that you don't experience the same kiss you have with one person when you kiss another. I kiss the same. At least I think I do. But it's not the same, I know. If it were the same I'd feel her heart, her soul, her lust. I'd feel her telling me things through the kiss that she would never have the courage to say aloud. But then I remind myself again that _she_ is not who I am kissing now. All I can taste from this kiss is a hot greedy mouth and maybe some impatience.

I run my hand up from her knee to her thigh and acknowledge its silkiness and heat. My cock stirs. I make myself not compare it to long slender legs I have not had wrapped around me like this in years. I kiss her harder.

I yank her panties down as I mouth one voluptuous breast through her blouse, leaving it damp. I will her to react, to make some noise, like an animal in heat, but she is silent and only panting and sometimes whimpering but never moaning. I want her to moan. I want her to moan. I want her to moan.

But a voice inside my head tells me the moan wouldn't be the same.

She unbuttons her own blouse, unclasps her bra with shaky hands as I unbuckle my belt, unsnap my pants, release my cock. She tries to shove my pants down farther, shuck my shirt up but I grasp her hands easily and push her back down. I only need my cock. She only needs my cock. She doesn't need my skin, my soul.

I run my hand back up her thigh and over her heat. Her pussy is bare and slick and in another life, I would nearly come at the thought, the sensation. I would bury my face in her sex and lap and lave and suck. I'd fuck her with my fingers and feast. But I can't bring myself to taste another. I don't know if I'll ever be able to taste another.

I stroke a finger up and down her slit and swirl and circle around her clit. Her juices make the task effortless but I find myself longing for another's dark, tight curls, another's juices on my fingers, another's velvet heat clasping and sucking on my fingers. Her scent is clean but not the same. Not the same as that honeyed sweetness that begged me to bury my face and stay and stay and stay; to eat, to dine, to swallow and beg for more.

She lifts her hips restlessly and makes impatient noises as I roll a condom on my cock. I lower myself between her thighs and thrust myself inside her. I latch my mouth on a breast that is too full, a nipple too small.

I suck and fuck and though there are no lights, I clench my eyes shut tight and will myself to think of nothing but my cock and her pussy and her juices coating my balls. I want noise; I want to hear what she is feeling but all I can hear are her disjointed gasping, panting and our pelvises slapping together.

I might as well be jerking off.

I feel the tingling at the base of my spine that once would have told me to slow down, to make it last. Fuck. I have to make her come. I slide my hand between our groins and find her clit and rub and rub and rub.

We both explode.

I lay over her, still, as she catches her breath.

Somehow, it comes back to me to say the right things as I pull out of her, climb off of her. I make my way to the bathroom to flush the condom. I eye the shower with longing. Longing to remove her scent, her juices, her touch. I want to wash away the moment.

I feel a pang of remorse for the beautiful woman in the other room who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is somebody's daughter, maybe somebody's sister; someday somebody's mother.

I've used her like my fist, like a whore just to slake my lust and anger of seeing _another_ with her lover, their eyes only for each other.

I shut off the bathroom light and step into the bedroom to grab my gun belt and my keys. She is asleep and I'm grateful not to have to play out the next sorry scene. I can barely see her, but for a moment it's easy to imagine the sleeping form is someone else.

That it's _her._

Because it is always in the dark.


	2. I Step into Her Light

**A/N: **This is part 2. Takes place perhaps a year after part one. The man is Ranger, the woman is Stephanie. If you braved part 1, this is your reward! Thanks again to Katbaby, Vicki, Dee, Jaime, Alf, Steph, Cat and Deb (have I forgotten anybody?) for giving me the courage to write and post this. Thanks to Dee for her wonderful beta skills.

**Warning: **This is smut…more artistic, introspective smut. But it's Ranger and Steph, so I figure it's okay.

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**I Step into Her Light**

I step into her light.

She stands before me, beautiful and unsure. The glow of her decision radiates from the depths of her eyes, the bearing of her posture, and the aura of her skin. I drink her in. Her hair, that riot of chocolaty ringlet curls, a tangible manifestation of everything she is. Wild, uncontained, unexplained, yet so soft, so natural, so right.

I don't want to ask why she's here, afraid it's only for a minute, a day, one night. I say nothing.

I hope.

Brave blue eyes scream for me to listen to what they have to say. I force myself to look, to see. Her eyes, they say, I'm here.

To stay.

Somehow she is beneath me and I am drunk on her acceptance. Her lips want to taste me, her arms want to keep me, and it is in this moment I feel a peace I have never known. She is my home.

I methodically undress her, piece by piece. Unwrapping, unveiling her beautiful body, the body, she says, that will only belong to me. I am humbled and I am awed, but somehow I acknowledge my acceptance.

I splay my body over her skin, her heat. I lower my face until my lips are just a breath away from hers. She stops me. She tells me she needs to see my skin, has to touch my skin, she wants all of me from the outside in.

My head spins as I peel off my armor, offer her my skin, offer her my body, and offer her my soul.

I am on my knees figuratively and literally. I take her in as she takes me in and it is only my passion, my resolve that keeps the sting of tears at bay. My soul cries out its relief.

Before her, I have never made love, and certainly not after. She is the only one.

She is the one.

I lean forward, propped on one elbow and cup and knead and relearn her breast. A perfect tear drop shape, full and firm and kissed at the tip with a nipple like a blushing pink tea rose. I trace its texture with my tongue for seconds that turn into minutes. I feel her uneven breaths blowing on the top of my head, her fingers pulling at my hair, pulling me towards her, into her. She moans and pleads for more.

I suckle her perfect breast into my mouth. I nip at that perfect tip. I give a glancing thought that this breast, meant to sustain a life, also has the power to sustain me. I swallow a groan.

"Please," she says. "Please…please."

I can never deny her. I give her nipple a parting lick, admiring its now darker hue. I kiss my way down the valley of her breasts, lick in a long, slow line down to her navel and swirl my tongue there.

She jolts and writhes and I know it gives her pleasure. It gives me pleasure too. I pay homage to this place that sustained her life, which made her strong so she could come into this world and change my world. Become my world.

I leave that place and kiss and nibble my way down to her mound, her curls. I kneel up and gently fold her legs, press her knees up and wide. She lets me.

I look up at her face and see that she is offering herself with no shame, no fear. Her body is mine, her eyes tell me, and I am free to see it as I am free to see my own body.

My eyes leave hers reluctantly and I find them drawn back to her dark curls, trimmed short. The curls are kissed in droplets, like dew, and they sparkle of her need for me. Her cleft is swollen and slick and I find my calloused finger reverently giving her slit one long stroke from bottom to top.

Her body shudders, she sighs, and I watch a drop, like a tear, fall from between her legs, down to the sheet below her.

I have to taste her.

I lower my face between her legs. Her scent and her taste are like ambrosia. I can't understand how I lived without this, how I survived without this. I lick, I lave, I eat, and I dine. I will her to give me more.

I give her my fingers, I spread her, impale her. She clasps me like a glove, refusing to let me go. I don't want to leave, I can't get enough, but she pulls me, tugs me, and begs me to come inside.

I slowly glide my body up her body and I feel our skin, our soul as it sparks with the poignant friction.

I lower my mouth over hers and glide my face, my lips, slick from her juices, back and forth, forth and back, along her cheeks, her jaw, her lips.

She grasps my head and fastens her lips on mine. She lets me in.

I glide my tongue along her tongue and we both moan at the taste we are sharing. I hear her moan. I hear her moan. I hear her moan.

It is this kiss that tells me everything she has never had the courage to tell me. Words she has never said aloud. This kiss tells me of her heart, her soul, her lust. It is a kiss that only the two of us can share. I belong to her. She belongs to me.

I thrust my fingers into her hair, into her curls. Curls that obscure the pillow and swallow my hands up to my wrists. My fingers become entangled and entrapped. I revel in my bonds.

I feel her slick heat slipping and gliding over and around the length of my cock. I pause for a moment at her entrance. I catch her eyes.

She whispers, "Come inside."

I enter her in one swift thrust. Then I stop. My head hangs low, between her shoulder and her neck, nearly buried in the pillow and her hair. The sting of tears is sharp again and I swallow hard against the lump in my throat.

I never thought…

I am inside her. I am home. I feel her silky walls embrace me, surround me, hold me and I relish the sensation, the trust she gives me that allows me to feel her wet heat against my skin.

I begin to move, to thrust slowly and gently. I lift my head and my loose hair falls over my eyes. She brings her long legs up to wrap around my waist as she brings her hands up to skim my hair back from my eyes. She wills me to show her, to tell her what I have held from her these three years.

As I glide, as I fill her, I see she has seen the answer as I fall into her eyes, into her body, and into her soul.

I am just about to say the words without addendums or stipulations when she clasps her hands in my hair, her legs around my waist and says, "I know. I love you too."

We move together in communion. Over time our connected bodies merge and glide and roll. It begins gently, tenderly and changes into something more until we are elemental, primal, marking, biting, clinging, and shouting.

I gather her to me, hauling her up as I kneel, knees splayed with her legs clamped around me. I don't want to come; I never want this to end. Then she comes, and I come. I come home.

She clings to me as she catches her breath. I wait, afraid. Will she let me go?

She pulls her head from my shoulder and I become aware she has left a trail of tears behind. She graces my lips with a tender kiss, a mere meeting of lips and asks me to open my eyes.

She says, "I'm here. I'm home."

I step into her light.


End file.
